The Conformist Generation

“The personal is the political” is a New Leftist slogan. I think what it really means is morality is altruist-collectivist-statist. Your values are not personal, but are bound up in and determined by politics.

This inversion of hierarchy makes politics more fundamental than morality, and so demotes values. Values are no longer intensely personal, but are collectivist: one conforms out of duty to the group. This creates a bizarre way of looking at the world, as seen in this video by Rock the Vote, which advises young people to withhold sex from people who oppose the leftist campaign to nationalize medicine.

Religious fundamentalists would probably say the young people in this video are “selfish” because they’re having sex. As Mencken said, puritanism is the suspicion that someone somewhere is having fun. The real problem with the morality of these young people — promiscuous-collectivist, if you will — is that they lack the true self-esteem to feel intense passion about their values. Instead sex is all casual. Let’s do it. No, let’s not do it because you oppose health care reform. Whatever.

These young conformists are the product of Dewey’s educational theory, which makes “socialization” an important concern of education. Americans now have a socialized morality and way of thinking. The Democrats are currently in the process of remaking our society so that it reflects the prevailing morality.

The brilliance of the New Left is that they focused on changing culture first, and left economics to follow. An individualist culture would never accept socialism, but a collectivist culture will go along with statism in docile obedience. The wonder is that our fragmented, diverse nation still has a significant portion of individualists resisting the growth of the state.

2 Comments so far ↓

I remember going from private (Catholic) elementary and secondary education to public college at ASU in 1992, and noticing that the students in general swarmed to political trends with a desperation that, to me, seemed far out of line with the real-world impact of “failing to conform.” Your analysis offers, I think, some corroboration that my impression was not misplaced. These kids have been taught collectivism to the core: believe as the group believes or you are an infidel.

RE: my previous post — To be fair, there was a conformist pressure at the Catholic schools as well, which was to adhere to the religion’s dogma. This is no less forgivable than the New Leftist collectivism taught in the public schools. However, perhaps pragmatically, the vast majority of instruction and social interaction that took place at the Catholic schools I attended was secular, and the general political spectrum more broad.

National Security Workforce to Address ‘Intersectionality’: do you ever get the sense that you’re in a waking nightmare? Money quote from the memo: “Our greatest asset in protecting the homeland and advancing our interests abroad is the talent and diversity of our national security workforce.”

Last Week Tonight on Donald Trump: bit long, but great takedown of the Trump mythos. In a more rational political environment, this would have killed his presidential campaign. I’m not sure it’ll make any difference.

A Responsibility I Take Seriously: nominee must be “without any particular ideology or agenda” and have “a keen understanding that justice is not about abstract legal theory, nor some footnote in a dusty casebook.” I sure hope the Republicans can hold the line on his nominations.

Trigger Warnings in Annapolis: I’m not sure why I expected the service academies to be bastions of academic freedom, but I did. It’s much worse than the universities since they’re far more hierarchical.

Announcing the Twitter Trust & Safety Council: this is within their rights, of course. Given the leftist leanings of the company and its assembled Council of Goodspeech, I suspect that some groups will get a pass and some will face suppression. Chilling at any rate.